- ArtistshouseMusic -

Amazon makes good use of Facebook

Gah650 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:02:03 -0700

Article:

I continue to be impressed by what Amazonmp3 is doing. Someone over there really gets how to leverage technology. You wouldn't think this would be so surprising being that Amazon was one of the first to leverage technology, but, man oh man, I've seen some doofus moves from companies who should know better. So, as I say, it's been nice to see someone really doing it right.

Everyone talks about how bands, companies, whomever should be using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to their respective advantage, but no one really says exactly how you should do this.

Truth be told, this is about the first time I've seen anyone do anything really smart with social networking.

So, here's what they're doing: Amazonmp3 set up a Facebook page - nothing too ground breaking about that. But what is well-played is how they're leveraging it to allow customers to become a part of the building process of the Amazonmp3 store. Specifically, they started a discussion topic asking members of the Facebook group what album they'd like to see on sale for a day. Simple as that. No complicated rules, legal provisions, contest, blah. Just this:

Any particular album you'd like to see on sale for a day? optional: and why?

After they got some responses, they went with The Best of Talking Heads. Certainly a righteous choice.

They made the whole thing "viral" by telling everyone who comes to the Amazonmp3 store that the selection was made via their Facebook page.

Doing it this way has the result of getting more people to go to the Facebook page, and making those who are using the Facebook page feel like they're actually participating in building/defining the effort.

It's so important for companies or musicians to not just view their customers/fans as recipients of their products/services/records, but as participants in building and defining the effort.

To be sure, only a very small handful of customers/fans will engage in these types of things, but this small percentage (the early adopters/mavens/evangelists) are the ones who pull the more casual customers/fans along for the ride.

What an effort like the one by Amazon's does is identify the special people (early adopters/mavens/evangelists), and begins the process of building a relationship with them. Additionally, as is seen from the answers to Amazon's question, a tremendous amount of information is derived from the customer. And, guess what, by employing this types of gambit, you get the information for free (no expensive customer surveys, etc.), and you get real information (i.e. people aren't just filing out some questionnaire so that they can get a prize; they're doing it because they want to and because they believe their opinion matters).

Smart. Smart. Smart.

More bands need to leverage Facebook/MySpace in this manner rather than simply using it as a barely effective communication device.

Herb Alpert Foundation Awards $1.2 Million for Scholarships for Young Artists

tessa — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:29:19 -0700

Article:

The Herb Alpert Foundation, who conceived the idea for and funded the development of Artistshousemusic.org, has awarded $1.2 million for scholarships to the California State Summer School for the Arts. The scholarships include three awards in each of six categories: animation and film/video; creative writing; dance; music; theater; and visual arts. Read more about these scholarships here.

The Tangled Web of Terrestrial Radio Artist Performance Royalties

tessa — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:15:56 -0700

The Tangled Web of Terrestrial Radio Artist Performance Royalties

Article:

This past Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property met to discuss the proposed Performance Rights Act. Like many things related to the record business, it’s a contentious issue. Depending on where you stand, the Performance Rights Act is either: A) long overdue, the artists have been getting screwed for years, or B) another instance of the RIAA (the trade organization that represents the major labels) scrambling to pull in income from anywhere they can, and in this case they are biting the hand that has fed them for years.

There’s a ton of information (and mis-information) out there, and it’s confusing. Here’s a condensed version of what’s going on, as I see it.

Background

Broadcasters in the U.S. have traditionally only paid royalties on the public performance of a composition to the appropriate performance rights organization (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). This money is then paid to the writers of the compositions. Unlike most other western nations, broadcasters in the U.S. have never compensated the artists themselves for any public performances. The same holds true for bars, restaurants, and retail stores. For the past 80 years, the record industry and the broadcasters have lived in harmony. The record industry worked the broadcasters, songs were played on the radio, records were sold, and everyone made money.

Players

On the side of radio is the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters), represented by spokesperson Dennis Wharton. Mr. Wharton is trying to build momentum for his cause by referring to the group he represents as “America’s hometown broadcasters,” which is not the first phrase that comes to mind when I think of Clear Channel, a massive radio conglomerate and NAB member. Two members of congress, Reps. Gene Green and Mike Conaway (both from Texas, the corporate headquarters of Clear Channel) have also introduced an anti-royalties bill called the Local Radio Freedom Act, which has been gaining support in Congress.

Those in favor of the royalty include the MusicFIRST Coalition, who was represented last week by Frank Sinatra’s daughter and recording artist, Nancy Sinatra. Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, also supports the bill, as does the RIAA (who incidentally back MusicFIRST). Sound Exchange, who has close ties to the RIAA, apparently will be responsible for collecting these new royalties, similar to their current role in collecting digital performance royalties.

Details

As submitted by Rep. Howard Berman of CA, the Performance Rights Act will:

(1) grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation from terrestrial broadcasters;

(2) establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for non-commercial, public broadcast stations;

(3) grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings; and

(4) grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings a per program license option.

(5) provides that nothing in this Act shall adversely affect the public performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright owners of musical works.

Arguments

The artist’s (and the RIAA’s) point of view is simple: the old ways of doing things no longer work in the new music economy. The artists have made significant money for the songwriters (and broadcasters) of radio hits, but have received nothing from the airplay of their music. A performance right in sound recordings has been imposed on digital services since 1995, including the controversial royalty on Internet radio. It is unfair that U.S. terrestrial radio gets a free ride when all the other radio platforms, as well as international broadcasters, are required to pay the artists for public performances.

The NAB contends that terrestrial radio has always been a partner for the artists, responsible for millions of dollars in record sales. Commonwealth Broadcasting President/CEO Steve Newberry, speaking on behalf of the NAB on Wednesday, thinks that “…local radio provides to the recording industry what no other music platform can: Pure music promotion. Radio is free, radio is pervasive, and no one is harming record label sales by stealing music from over-the-air radio.” He went on to mention that if the bill passes “…the value of this extraordinary promotion, and all of the financial benefits that come from it, will be harmed. Ultimately, less music will be played, less exposure will be provided for artists — particularly new artists — and music sales will suffer.” The NAB also believes that the blame for dropping revenues in music is misdirected, and that the real problem for artists is restrictive recording contracts.

My Opinion

The NAB and the RIAA (the jury is still out for me on Sound Exchange, who have a heavy RIAA affiliation) are not organizations that have the artist’s best interest in mind. Their job is to represent the best interest of their member companies. And although the NAB is framing this as a battle between the “local broadcasters” and the RIAA (taking advantage of the RIAA’s terrible PR problem), this issue affects artists at every stage of their career, signed and independent. Although income is falling, the broadcasters are still making money (radio revenues came in at about $20 billion in 2007, according to ICBS Broadcast Holdings President/COO Charles Warfield, who testified on behalf of the NAB) based on the content these artists produce, and to say the artists should not be compensated for this is the embodiment of the old-school record business.

For me, the real question is if terrestrial commercial radio is still effective at selling music. Fewer and fewer people are tuning in to the large commercial stations that make up a large part of the membership of the NAB, and the play lists at commercial radio are so tight that the number of artists that commercial radio “breaks,” in terms of converting radio play to mechanical royalty sales, is miniscule. While I think non-commercial radio (in particular college radio and NPR) and some commercial Triple A stations are good promotional options for independent artists (radio play helps to get folks to shows where they can buy merch, it provides some legitimacy for a press campaign, and also could work to help a licensing pitch, for example), I’m not convinced that radio works to move records anymore at such a significant rate that it pays for itself. Promoting to radio is expensive, even to non-com radio, and of course there is no guarantee you’ll get spins anyway.

Lastly, terrestrial radio is no longer in the position to say that the promotion they wield is far superior to these other non-terrestrial radio outlets that do pay a performance royalty, in particular for developing artists. I think there needs to be parity between all forms of radio: satellite, online, and terrestrial. I’m confident that non-terrestrial radio will continue to gain market share over the coming years, and I think it’s likely that terrestrial radio will continue to lose listeners, too.

My only major concern with the Performance Rights Act (other than reservations about Sound Exchange and possible collection issues) is the effect it might have on the small non-commercial terrestrial stations that work to promote local artists. The bill does stipulate that these smaller stations will pay a smaller annual flat fee of $5,000, but profit margins are so razor-thin at non-commercial radio, that even this could cause a problem.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Attachment	Size
radio.jpg	1.73 KB

Ooh Lala! (dot com)

tessa — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:31:29 -0700

Article:

Michael Robertson, founder of mp3.com and persistent tech entrepreneurposted on his blog todayabout a new music service called Lala.com under the headline "$20 Million Dollar Experiment to See if You'll Rent a Song for 10 Cents".

In his post he talks about how the new service works. The site allows users to purchase a song for a dime. When they do, that song is put into your account. You can access this account from any place with an Internet connection.

The catch? There’s no way to download the songs to your hard drive or to a portable device.

All of the major record labels are on board and Warner Brothers has invested $20 million to help them get started. Their total capital investment is $34 million, the remainder coming from the large investment group Bain Capital.

If you’d like to try the service out, you can sign up here.

Michael’s big beef with the whole thing is that the site is betting that people are willing to pay ten cents a song for web only music. He doesn’t see that as a reasonable proposition.

He may well be right. iTunes has the brand and the cache among non-tech users. It’s certainly reasonable to think that this site may have trouble bridging the generational gap. It’s reasonable to expect that a certain amount of the success of the site has to do with how well the site is promoted and cross-branded.

It’s also true that Michael missed one key feature of the site: you can buy non-DRM versions of all of the songs for $0.89. It remains to be seen if they integrate their store with iTunes the way that the Amazon store does. (Really, the Amazon store is very clever in how they implemented that feature.)

From this angle, it seems as though Amazon is their natural competitor since they both share a lower price ($0.89) and are available as non-DRM files.

More accurately, I believe the site isn’t meant to be the online retail behemoth of iTunes. It’s meant to satisfy users who spend a lot of time online and who currently listen to their music via iMeem or Last.fm. It’s conceivable that this service could make a great addition to Internet radio stations.

To me, the site looks like an attempt to answer Tim O’Reilly’s quote from Star Wars in how copyright holders should treat music listeners: "Give the wookie what he wants."

If you love making and sharing playlists online, a dime a song sounds imminently reasonable. If you want to take the music with you, it’s available for purchase in a non-DRM format cheaper than you could get it through iTunes.

It fills the niche between Pandora, Rhapsody, and iTunes. Will it be successful? Only time will tell. But just by signing up your first 50 downloads are free.

So take it for a spin and let us know what you think on the discussion boards.

Solving the Problem with Digital Music: Slimbox Duet

tessa — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:42:31 -0700

Solving the Problem with Digital Music: Slimbox Duet

Article:

After accumulating (way too many) CDs since 1987, I’m making the move to converting my collection to digital. The have decreased to the point that it makes sense to rip my CDs to a lossless format, and the truth is, while I’m a big fan of liner notes and artwork, I’ve had it with CD storage. And moving the collection is nothing short of a horror show nightmare.

The major problem with digital music for me has been playing my music at home. I’ve been using the Airport Express to wirelessly stream my digital collection to my receiver, which is a huge step up from listening to digital music on tinny computer speakers, but even then it’s still inconvenient to have to control my music selection from my computer using iTunes.

The Slimbox Duet solves this problem for me. The Duet is a two-part (hence the name) digital music solution consisting of a receiver, and the thing that really makes this product special, the remote control device. Modeled after the iPod interface (but with a slightly less responsive scroll wheel), the remote control component hooks up to the digital music library on my external hard drive, allowing me to stream anything from my collection to my home stereo – without getting up from the couch. Also, the system is compatible with streaming radio services like Pandora, Rhapsody, podcasts, and other online resources like the incredible live music archive found at www.archive.org. I’ve had the duet set up for a week, and it’s like a whole new world to me.

While the Slimbox can play virtually all audio formats, it cannot play DRM files – including almost anything purchased on iTunes (which uses Fair Play DRM). All the more reason to purchase from DRM-free online retailers like Amazon, eMusic, or the new Napster mp3 store!

Attachment	Size
jive_top_200[1].jpg	2.74 KB

Make Our Video

tessa — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:40:55 -0700

Make Our Video

Article:

Radiohead and I share a couple of things in common. We both love Bill Hicks (Paul Kolderie got me backstage in 2002 where I got to talk to Jonny Greenwood about Bill), but more importantly we are both interested in user-generated content. I really liked the "Nude" remix idea where different "stems" of the song (vocals, drums, guitar etc) could be downloaded, remixed, and then entered into a contest on http://radioheadremix.com. Although some folks have a problem with buying the stems from iTunes at $.99 each, I think it’s a great visibility vehicle for the band as well as a wonderful way to interact with their community. Radiohead even provides folks with a widget to add to their Facebook profile, MySpace page or website. Marketing ploy? Yes. Creative promotion that is effective at engaging folks? Yes.

Following up on this, aniBoom is now in the semi-final stage of their In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest. The contest invites folks to create animated videos to In Rainbows tracks, with the winner of the competition (who will be chosen by Radiohead themselves) receiving a $10,000 cash prize and a shot at having their video air on the Cartoon Network's [adult Swim]. Below are some of my favorite semi-finalists:

watch more at aniBoom

watch more at aniBoom

Attachment	Size
rainbow2.jpg	2.93 KB

I Take Back All That Bad Stuff I Said About SoundExchange (And So Should You)

Ben — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:24:51 -0700

Article:

In the summer of 2007 news that the Copyright Royalty board was set to raise the amount Internet radio webcasters paid in performance royalties hit the Internet.

The Huffington Post, Ars Technica, Wired, and Daily Kos, among others carried dire warnings that the new performance royalty rate would be too high for most webcasters to pay thus driving them out of business.

The story was a perfect David and Goliath. In this case, David was played by Pandora, everybody’s favorite custom Internet radio station. Playing the part of Goliath was SoundExchange. They’re a non-profit company started in 2000 by the RIAA, the association that’s suing music listeners for copyright infringement. To most Internet savvy music listeners, that means SoundExchange is Satan’s spawn.

Add to this one little fact: SoundExchange collects performance royalties on all music played on Internet or satellite radio, regardless of whether or not the artist is signed up with SoundExchange to be paid those royalties.

This fact seems to confirm that they are as dirty or dirtier than their corporate parent. Suing music listeners wasn’t enough, now they were out to kill Internet radio!

At least, that’s the story that was told to those of us who were keeping tabs on the issue.

And then I happened to attend an interview session at Loyola University with John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange at the end of April. I thought of every possible scenario I could come up with that could coax the appropriate response from the head of the organization birthed by the devil, but during both the Q&A with George Howard and further still in my discussion with him after the interview, he did something I thought impossible: he made me see the David vs. Goliath setup in a whole new light.

First, let’s get their association with the RIAA out of the way. After being formed as an unincorporated division of the RIAA in 2000 they were given the right by the Copyright Office to collect performance royalties for Internet and satellite radio beginning on January 1, 2003. They were spun off by the RIAA in September 2003 as an independent, non-profit company. In the interview, John Simson claimed no relationship with the RIAA and that he purposefully acts to instill the opposite mindset from the RIAA in the organization.

Next is the idea that SoundExchange is out to kill Internet Radio. Since I grew up playing with computers and the Internet, frankly, it just sounded odd to me that a rights organization should be able to collect royalties on non-on-demand streaming audio. It just seemed crazy to me that a user could download a song for free, but if that same song was played over the Net in a stream then royalties would have to be paid.

As it turns out, it is crazy, but probably not how you might think.

The rationale goes something like this. If you use music on your website, you owe a performance royalty to the artist whose music you’re using. For example, if you get a MySpace page for your band and upload a song – you, by law, are given the ability to collect a performance royalty. The same is true for Internet radio. If your music is played on an Internet radio station, then you are entitled to a performance royalty. But only in the case of Internet radio does the site owner have a place to go to pay that royalty. In all other cases, websites are either infringing on the artist’s rights or they have made their own deals directly with the artist.

In the case of MySpace, in signing up to get a profile you give away your right to collect royalties from MySpace for its usage. That is the deal you agreed to. In this case, they give you the ability to put your music on MySpace and they agree to use it on their site without paying you to do so.

For most small webcasters, striking individual deals with artists would be both time and cost prohibitive. Rather than do that, as long as their revenue is less than $1.25 million a year webcasters can pay SoundExchange $500 a year in exchange for playing any music they want.

Think about that for a second. Is $500 going to shut down most Internet radio stations? Probably not. This current deal is good through 2010 but John stressed that they’d like to extend it to 2015.

But what if you’re an Internet radio station who only plays indie music where nobody is signed and all the artists are just looking for exposure. Would the radio station have to pay then? According to John, webcasters are free to make their own individual deals with artists giving them the rights to play the artists works for free.

By now, this isn’t starting to look like such a bad deal. But SoundExchange does collect performance royalties for non-members. Surely that’s bad and unethical.

However, in order for it to be bad and unethical, SoundExchange would have to be able to keep all uncollected money. Yet, if you go on their website (I’d give you a direct link but they helpfully built the entire site in Flash) they maintain a list of names of unregistered artists so one can easily find out if they have money to collect.

There seems to be a time limit on when you can collect but you have to remember, that’s a government imposed limit, not part of SoundExchange’s (non-profit) business plan.

So rather than coming to kill Internet radio, SoundExchange feels much more like a rights’ facilitator. It makes it easy for small Internet radio stations to pay the $500 performance royalty annual fee and gives them the entire catalog of music in return. For artists, they make it easy to collect performance royalties and easy to find out if you’re owed performance royalties even if you’re not a member. They also give you the ability as an Internet radio station or an artist to go out and make your own deals that exclude SoundExchange altogether.

Attachment	Size
sxe.jpg	16.57 KB

Starbucks Pulling Out of Day-to-Day Management of Hear Music

tessa — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:32:32 -0700

Starbucks Pulling Out of Day-to-Day Management of Hear Music

Article:

Hot on the heels of Starbucks warning on Wednesday that they expect their earnings to drop to 15 cents a share (down from 19 cents a year ago) in the fiscal second quarter, Starbucks announced Thursday that they were ceding all management responsibilities for it’s music label, Hear Music to its partner, Concord Music Group. Starbucks, which cut about 600 positions in February, is clearly looking for more ways to reduce costs.

“As part of our ongoing transformation, we are committed to examining all aspects of our business that are not directly related to our core,” said Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO in a press release here. “We have had numerous successes in music and books including eight GRAMMY® Awards and three No.1 books on the New York Times bestseller list. However, now is the appropriate time to restructure our Entertainment business to better align our efforts with our overall business strategies.”

Hear Music, founded in 1990, was purchased by the Starbucks Coffee Company in 1999. In 2007, the company partnered with Concord to release Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full, record, his first non-major label recording. Hear Music has also released music by Dave Matthews Band, Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, and Wilco.

I’m a fan of alternate retail and distribution outlets, and completely targeted niche-marketing campaigns. But I tend to agree with Mr. Schultz in that perhaps managing Hear Music has interfered with Starbucks core market, and the resulting changes are designed to refocus what they’re good at: selling high priced coffee. The fact is that Starbucks/Hear has done some great things for developing artists, but the sales from Starbucks were marginal at best. The New York Times reported last month that on average each Starbucks location sells only two CDs per day!

Attachment	Size
hearmusic.jpg	2.09 KB

Keepin It Real

Ben — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:39:25 -0700

Article:

I came of age during the height of gangsta rap. The albums that defined my high school years were 2pac's "Me Against the World" and "All Eyez On Me", Snoop's "Doggystyle", Bone Thugs n Harmony's "E. 1999 Eternal", Biggie's "Ready to Die", Cypress Hill's "Black Sunday" and Wu-Tang's "Enter the 36 Chambers" just to name a few. I even wrote a piece for my freshman English 102 class titled "Lyrical Assassins" that explained the history of the East Coast/West Coast rivalry of the mid-90s.

Like every other teenager growing up in suburban America I was angry. We were the kids that came four years after Nirvana and took parental rebellion to its logical conclusion. It culminated in the anoinment of Eminem as our collective voice; one of anger, resentment, self depreciation and, oddly enough for a bunch of white kids from the burbs, black power.

It's not like we were breaking ground or anything. The songs of southern plantation workers were the basis for the blues which was the foundation for rock n roll. Robert Johnson meet Bret Michaels.

The blues were often about the plight of black America. According to Tupac and others, gangsta rap was the new blues articulating a life of economic disparity and dirty living just to get by.

To fans of gangsta rap, myself included, we saw the nuance in the lyrics. If the lyrics sounded like code to outsiders, black culture was the primary decoder ring. Listening to rap was an immersive process, one that required knowledge of people, groups, associations, and affiliations. Unlike any other music genre I can think of, it created a near genre wide narrative thread. This narrative, created and nurtured in the streets but shined and polished in the studio reflected the urban minority experience like like a hall of mirrors but like a hall of mirrors, each reflection still reflected a real reality, a real truth.

But, gangsta rap also reveled in its excess and its growing popularity, especially in bedrooms like mine, caused concerned parents to blame gangsta rap for societal ills. Like 2 Live Crew's hypersexual lyrics and Led Zeppelin's music played backwards, gangsta rap was another way that the recorded arts was destroying America.

To that end, Tupac was interviewed by Tabitha Soren for MTV in 1995 where he was asked "do you feel like rappers should be more responsible with their lyrics?"

His answer. "Yes."

"What would you define as irresponsible?"

His answer was remarkable. "You talk about murder and death and you don't talk about the pain. Or you talk about killing, robbing, and stealing and you don't talk about jail, death and betrayal and the things that go with it."

To Tupac, his idea of the moral high ground was to provide context. It's not just a video game life of big tits, big guns, big money and big fame, though those dreams exist within hip hop. Nope. They occur and contrast themselves against it being a hard knock life with consequences and negativity around every corner. His music was a reflection of this contextualization of black urban life. It ran the gamut from songs about Mom ("Dear Mama") to teenage pregnancy ("Brenda's Got A Baby"), booty calls ("What'z Ya Phone #"), to getting out of jail ("Picture Me Rolling"), reppin his set ("California Love") to taking time out to set a woman straight ("Wonda Why They Call U Bitch").

And yes it also included ego trippin ("Me Against The World"), gang banging ("Troublesome '96") and claims of sleeping with Biggie's wife Faith Evans ("Hit Em Up"). If you take those songs out of context, out of the narrative then what you're left with is a video game view of gangsta rap. It's when that happens - the lack of context - that you turn into Bill Cosby.

The AP ran a story on April 15, 2008 quoting Bill Cosby contrasting his new upcoming album with gangsta rap. Cosby said that his album is "the opposite of what I think is the profanity for no particular reason, the misogyny for no particular reason", referring to gangsta rap. He's got it right: it's all about context.

Immersed in albums from Nas to Scarface, Tupac to Biggie, Luke to the 69 Boyz, and Will Smith, in the mid-90s listeners of rap knew the lay of the land. But new revelations make me question the importance of keeping it real.

It's all Akon's fault.

Akon is the popular R&B singer best known for singing R&B hooks on rap records with 21 Billboard Hot 100 credits to his name. He's the most popular R&B/rap crooner since Nate Dogg. His backstory (remember the importance of narrative), explained time and again in interviews, is that he was the leader of a notorious Atlanta car theft ring with four chop shops that served criminals and celebrities alike. He got ratted out by some underlings, did 3 years in jail where he fought daily and honed his songwriting ability. Upon release he got a deal, called his label Konvict Muzik and his second album "Konvicted". His music is a reflection of that narrative.

The only problem is, he's a fake.

For a genre that's based on "keepin' it real" after wholly embracing him, this has got to be a problem.

The Smoking Gun is reporting that Akon's criminal record is nothing more than cynical marketing exaggerations. His story is one that he's perpetrated in order to identify with the "real" part of his audience. White America may control the Billboard hip hop charts but they still like their thugs with a prison record. 50 Cent had to get shot 9 times before we'd buy his records.

So this revelation that Akon isn't the thug he says he is should be a devastating blow to his career. If this had happened in the mid-90s I would have said his life is in danger. He's a fake thug, a busta, a wanksta. According to the narrative of gangsta rap, he's done. What will be interesting to see is if that actually plays out.

Many people have argued that gangsta rap passed into parody long ago. If it remained intact through the bling era, surely the imitators of the bling era had to be thought of as the XFL to Snoop, Pac, Dre and Biggie's NFL. But, I think this will be the first real test to see if that is true.

I think you could make a pretty good comparison between gangsta rap and comic books. In both, the figures are bigger than life. The actions are bigger than life. The rewards are bigger than life. And in both, the tits are huge. In Comics, there were the various factions: X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, the Brotherhood of Mutants, the Justice League; the various personalities: Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine; and the dramatic universe-altering story arcs. In gangsta rap you had the various factions: Death Row, Bad Boy, Dungeon Fam, No Limit, Wu-Tang, Flipmode Squad; the various personalities: Pac, Dre, Snoop, Suge, Biggie, Puffy, Busta Rhymes; and the dramatic rap world altering story arcs. Keeping tabs on the factions, personalities, and feuds while providing an outlet for anger was basically what sold records (and comics). If the X-Men had the Dark Phoenix saga, rappers had the rebirth of 2pac at Death Row.

To this point, the issue of "keeping it real" was supposed to matter. My guess is that it has always mattered more the closer you got to the hotspots of rap. But my sneaking suspicion is that "keeping it real" means much less to your average angry surburban teenager than it does on Crenshaw Blvd. To rap's target market, pop culture has room for a healthy dose of ironic self-parody.

This is a crowd who would find an Akon and Milli Vanilli mashup funny.

That being said, I do believe that Akon's outing to be a line in the sand. Either his career is over or gangsta rap in the pop music sense has truly ceased to be a voice for truth and an outlet for the voice of the disenfranchised. It will have as much in common with the explosive lyrics of Ice Cube and 2pac as Bret Michaels does with Robert Johnson. The qualities that separated the narrative of pop music gangsta rap from comic books: keeping it real, will be gone leaving only a comic book narrative.

Now that's keeping it real.

Shouts to Alicia Keys and J Smooth.

Attachment	Size
akon.jpg	3.93 KB

Apple wins!

tessa — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:23:52 -0700

Article:

According to a new NPD MusicWatch Survey, and first discussed on ArsTechnica, Apple has for the first time beaten Wal-Mart to become the nation's largest music retailer by capturing 19 percent of the music retail market in January 2008. Wal-mart came in second with 15 percent market share.

The day when digital downloads would exceed physical media purchases has long been expected. For the deafest of deaf in the music business, the proof is finally in the pudding. The CD is dead. The nightmare is real.

How real is it? For one, digital music buyers buy tracks while CD buyers have to pay for the whole thing. The result: fewer tracks sold and less money made. That goes a long way towards explaining the 10 percent decline in music spending in 2007. According to NPD's research, 48 percent of US teens didn't buy a single CD in 2007.

Now that's real.

It's enough to make you think Flo-Rida and T-Pain were talking about music profits when they sang, "shorty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low".

January's Digital Music Forum: East revealed a new enlightenment among the music establishment. DRM was being tossed by the wayside, new models based on accessibility and meeting the customer's needs were being discussed. It was if the music industry was creative again.

Just the other day the Times Online reported that Warner, EMI and others were talking with ISPs and mobile phone providers to supply their entire catalog on a subscription basis. The two sticking points for the majors: their percentage of the revenue split and their insistence on shackling the consumer with DRM music. This would prevent music from playing in all players (such as iPods) and would also lock a customer out of their music once their subscription had ended.

These old tactics only prove that the elegant solution has yet to reveal itself. In that, Apple can take some satisfaction. Reports are that they too are in talks with the majors for an all-you-can eat approach. Until that's all sorted out, Apple can enjoy doing what nobody else can do: outsell Wal-Mart.

¾ Of Major Labels Ink A 360 Deal With MySpace

tessa — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:52:32 -0700

¾ Of Major Labels Ink A 360 Deal With MySpace

Article:

Well, there’s certainly no shortage of news from the major labels lately. Following recent announcements from Warner (who are presenting a vague idea to charge people a flat fee for all the music they care to download from peer-to-peer sites), and Sony/BMG (whose head, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, revealed that he supports the idea of a DRM-free unlimited music service), The New York Times today reported that three of the four major labels (EMI is rumored to join soon) have struck a deal with MySpace to launch "MySpace Music." The deal will be set up as a joint venture, where the labels will receive an equity stake, and MySpace will control and operate the organization.

Some interesting points:

The major’s entire catalogs would be available.
The labels will stream their music for free, and be paid through advertising dollars (MySpace apparently currently makes $70 million a month in advertising revenue).
Tracks will be available for download DRM-free, so they can play on any MP3 player.
The labels will also use the outlet to sell artist’s merch, ringtones, and tickets (which, thanks to the 360 deals the majors are going for now, will provide additional revenue streams for them).
There is also a possibility of a subscription-based component that would allow users to pay a monthly amount for unlimited downloads (likely through subscription DRM).

It looks to be a real win-win situation for the labels (as well as consumers), apparently made possible through Universal settling their 2006 lawsuit against MySpace for roughly $100 million (which is rumored to be part of the deal).

The only wild card is if folks can be convinced to actually purchase music through MySpace. Shawn Fanning’s Snocap, which folks can currently use to create an online store on MySpace, has not been popular (check out what Derek Sivers, CEO of CD Baby, said about their past arrangement here).

Attachment	Size
myspace.jpg	2.54 KB

Alan McGee on 360 Deals

tessa — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:27:04 -0700

Article:

I've felt somewhat alone in my abject disdain for these so-called 360 deals that labels are foisting upon artists. In a nutshell, a 360 deal entitles the label to a piece of pretty much all the revenue streams of the artist (hence the term "360"). Typically, a label would only be entitled to revenue generated from the sale of the records they release. Under a 360 deal, the labels not only get that stream, but also a piece of ticket sales and merch.

These 360 deals aren't new. Robbie Williams and Korn did them years ago. The difference was that those artists (a) had a choice not to do them, and (b) received massive advances for these rights. Now, artists don't have any choice (you want a deal with a major...this is the deal you get), and the advances are basically what these artists would have gotten for a non-360 deal.

My issue with these 360 deals is primarily one of taxation without representation. That is, the artists are giving up a piece of their revenue and not receiving anything in return. Did labels, in the course of the past year, suddenly become expert at maximizing touring and merch revenue? Of course not. They're not doing anything differently than they always have (to their peril), but now just want to share in the earnings.

I do get the labels' argument. They feel - not without reason - that the artists are able to sell concert tickets and t-shirts, in some respect, because of the promotional work that the label has done. That said, these revenue streams are often the only ones that keep a band solvent while they wait (often indefinitely) for a royalty payment from the label. There was sort of an unspoken understanding that artists would take the lopsided deals with the labels because they (the artists) could increase some of their other revenue streams; such as touring and merch.

With 360 deals, these once sacrosanct revenue streams of the artists are now just another piece of collateral that the label holds. What happens, for instance, if the artist is horribly unrecouped (as so many are), and the label expects them to keep touring, but won't pay any tour support? The artist can no longer subsidize their tours nearly as effectively because their revenue from CD sales, t-shirts, and tickets has now been drastically reduced...because the label is taking their cut.

Now, I'm no fan of the unrecouped artist. Bands need to not look to the labels as banks. They need to find multiple revenue streams to be sure that even if the label drops the ball, they have other ways to keep going. 360 deals make that impossible.

Finally, my biggest issue - going back to the taxation without representation idea - is that the artists aren't getting any value for what they're giving up. If the artist's ability to generate tour/merch revenue was greatly increased (over and above what it always has been) by something the label is doing, then, by all means, the label should share in it. It's not, and the labels shouldn't.

Phew.

Anyway, Creation Records founder Alan McGee agrees with me, and puts it far more succinctly and entertainingly in this post. Some salient quotes:

In a 360-degree deal, this is what the records company is doing: ripping off the door at the gig. Let's call it like it is. Where is the morality in that? The cops would bust someone for stealing at the door. And everyone would applaud. It raises the question of legality. If you want a record deal you have to give up money you earn from other endeavours. Isn't this a form of extortion? I hope some attorney gives counsel on this for us all.

SXSW

tessa — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:25:44 -0700

Article:

Whew. Just got back from one of the largest music conferences in the world – SXSW (South By SouthWest) in Austin, TX. It’s like a musical wonderland down there. I was floored by Earthless, These are Powers, A Place to Bury Strangers, Chuck Prophet, Mark Kozelek, Brad Barr, The Peasantry, and in particular, Monotonix, which might have put on one of the most ridiculous/riveting performance I have ever seen. Check them out:

I suppose that seeing good music at SXSW is a given, but now that I am back and catching up with my RSS feeds and emails, it’s a little surprising for me to see that some folks have an opinion that SXSW is a waste of time for bands, the business has changed in such a way that the industry folks in attendance don’t make a difference anymore, and that the conference is so crowded there is little chance that bands can make any impact anyway.

To me, that’s a bit of a close-minded and jaded way to look at things.

It might be true that the major label A&R folks that are at SXSW are interested in locking bands into 360 deals that are likely not in the best interest of artists. But from a promotional and business standpoint, there are fantastic opportunities. We all know the Internet has changed everything about the business – sales, distribution, and how music is discovered. Commercial radio has fizzled as a means to expose folks to new music, having been replaced by blogs and online music communities. And the blogs have been in full effect at SXSW. Sean Moeller runs a tremendous music blog/site called Daytrotter, and he’s been holed up at Big Orange Studios in Austin the whole week recording exclusive live sets and interviews with folks like Peter Bjorn, from Peter Bjorn and John, Kaki King, and Jonathan Rice. The notion that there is too much competition at SXSW is discounted by that fact that the Internet allows the new breed of tastemakers to bring SXSW to you. All it takes is one blogger writing about your performance to make an impact on hundreds or thousands of folks immediately, both through editorial and multimedia content.

It always comes back to the music. If your music kills and you work hard, good things will happen. Berklee put on a show on Friday afternoon at Friends on 6th street, where my good friend and Berklee alum Brad Barr performed. Brad played a beautiful Townes Van Zandt-inspired set (to my ears) of original music. Directly after the show, Brad was approached to play a solo set at the High Sierra Music Festival in California next year, as well as an opportunity to play Middlebury College. Cory Brown, the founder of artist-friendly Absolutely Kosher records, was in attendance too, rocking out to The Peasantry. It’s tough for me to see how these things could be viewed as anything but positive for Brad and The Peasantry.

Not on the Test!

tessa — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:45:52 -0700

Not on the Test!

Article:

For students and parents who may be stressed out over testing, here’s a lullaby for the times. Grammy Award-winning children’s artist Tom Chapin offers the “Not on the Test” song and video to raise awareness about the importance of music education in all classrooms and to express concern about what is missing from American public education. “Not on the Test,” with music and lyrics by Chapin and his long-time collaborator John Forster, and produced by PST Records, can be downloaded at www.notonthetest.com.

Additional information and advocacy links can be found here.

Attachment	Size
music notes.jpg	2.17 KB

Ghosts in the Machine

Ben — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:26:32 -0700

Ghosts in the Machine

Article:

You'll have to excuse me if this editorial seems a little more stream of consciousness than normal. I've been listening to Ghosts I from the new Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV that I downloaded from the official 'leaked' torrent on The Pirate Bay.

"This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams."

Trent's right. It's the kind of music you might dream of after too much NyQuil and having watched The Ghost in the Shell or The Animatrix.

I like it. It reminds me of many bits and pieces from The Fragile.

It's fun to write to.

But for all the talk across the Net about Trent's newest release, I haven't heard too many people talking about the music itself.

Not that it seems to matter. The album was dropped on an unsuspecting public and immediately made the frontpage of Digg and other social aggregation sites. Now, several days after the release, I'm listening to my legally 'stolen' version (Ghosts I has been released under a non-commercial Creative Commons license) which Trent personally uploaded to various torrent sites. Reports are everywhere that the 2,500 $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package is sold out. Ooh, math! That's a cool $750,000 in 72 hours.

Quick, fire your record label!

Last week there was a report that suggested that Trent only had to pay $56.61 to upload his music to the Amazon store through TuneCore. TuneCore is a service that allows musicians to upload their content to popular web music outlets like iTunes and Amazon for a small fee.

So what does this mean for your average I-don't-wanna-work-I-just-wanna-bang-on-the-drum-all-day musician? Are the only people that are going to profit in the era of free artists that made their name on a major record label?

While Nine Inch Nails has had tremendous success in this wild-and-wooly environment, Saul Williams and his album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggytardust attracted less than 20% paying customers at $5 a pop. Reznor, who financed the album revealed the numbers in a blog post on his website and concluded that while recording expenses were covered, "nobody's getting rich off this project."

So what are the take away lessons? Are Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails the only bands that get to make a million dollars selling their music online? If Saul Williams can't make it, what hope do you have?

Lots of hay has been made about how the music industry has dropped the ball reacting to the digital music revolution. There hasn't been as much discussion about how the music industry has also allowed ego and ignorance to run wild among their musicians. There are plenty of acts on major labels who have trouble keeping up with basic expenses, much less have an idea of how to manage an online identity. Even Trent had to learn the hard way that your business manager will steal all your money if you don't keep an eye on it.

This new digital era requires work. As much as I and others would love to lead you to believe that all you have to do is x, y, and z and profit!, the truth of the matter is, the artists that will thrive are those that get smart about spreading their art.

Beyond the obvious things: a website, MySpace and Facebook profiles, and YouTube there are an increasing number of ways to get known in the digital realm that end in profit.

First, consider how you want to license your work. If you want to use the Creative Commons license, they have a very nice page that can help you choose which license you want to release your work under. It's worth a look. (Word to Lessig)

Having your CD is Best Buy is nice, having your CD on iTunes and the Amazon store is essential. TuneCore makes that possible at a very reasonable cost.

Selling music online is an obvious thing to do. Signing up with a music licensing company, less so. Audiosocket Music makes it easy. For $15 an artist can upload up to 4 tracks for their A&R staff to review. Upon making the cut (and they are actively recruiting new talent) you'll get one of the most fair non-exclusive licensing deals going.

There are several places where people go to find new music. You need to find those places and get there. Last.fm is the UK site bought by CBS that has full-length tracks and entire albums for free streaming from all the major labels. You too can have your songs there for free.

Thesixtyone.com is a site built to satisfy all the aspiring A&R executives out there. Think you know a hit song when you hear one? Now's your chance to prove it. Think you have a hit song? Upload your music and see what happens. You might be surprised.

It's these and other new sites and technologies that are going to give the up-and-coming musician who wants to make it in the digital age a chance at also making a profit. It's not scarcity that will drive profit but availability and convenience.

Look at what Jill Sobule is doing for her new album. She's pre-raising the $75,000 she needs to make it from her fans. It's the ArtistShare method at a personal level. She offers fans options ranging from a digital download of the album for $10 all the way up to performing with her on the album for $10,000. Fans have currently raised more than $80,000 for the cause.

What this tells us is that there are no right ways right now on how make a living making music in the digital age. It's like the beginning of MTV before there was a visual language for music videos. Anything goes.

Remember, Amway is supposed to save the music business.

While you're contemplating your next move, pop in that first track from Ghosts I. It's beautifully haunting and will help you remember, that in the end, it's still all about the music.

Attachment	Size
nin.ghosts.jpg	19.11 KB

Why I love Tunecore

tessa — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:23:51 -0800

Why I love Tunecore

Article:

I’ve talked a lot about how TuneCore and CD Baby are great online distribution options for independent bands. The two are set up differently, with CD Baby taking 9% of sales, and TuneCore making money on a $19.98 annual fee plus $.99 per store per record upfront costs. At low sales, there is very little difference between the two services. But at higher sales figures, there’s quite a bit of difference.

Eliot Van Buskirk at Wired’s great music blog just wrote a quick piece on what Trent Reznor likely paid to distribute his new record, ‘Ghosts I-V’ to Amazon. It’s really pretty amazing:

Trent Reznor found a great deal for distributing his comprehensive new Nine Inch Nails album to the Amazon MP3 store: going through TuneCore, while keeping ownership of the master recordings and 100 percent of royalties. Now we can see why he was so eager to leave his record label.

This is assuming TuneCore charged Reznor its standard for delivering a 36-song album on the Amazon MP3 store for the first year; I have a question in with TuneCore to try to confirm:

$35.64 ($0.99 per track)
$ 0.99 to put one album in one online music store
$19.98 charge per album
------------------
$56.61: Total cost to distribute Ghosts I-V to Amazon MP3

That's not the only efficient aspect of Reznor's plan. He's using BitTorrent to distribute the first 8-song volume of the album to fans for free, and the innovative aspect of the release generated lots of (deserved) press attention.

Trent is using a Creative Commons license with this current release, which I also think is noteworthy.

Attachment	Size
tunecore.jpg	2.39 KB

Teo Macero

tessa — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:30:47 -0800

Article:

In A Silent Way changed everything I thought about the music I loved. In the early 1970’s I was in law school, pretty much regretting every minute of it. Listening to In A Silent Way filled my study hours. After that it was Bitches Brew that filled them. I was enthralled by the shifting motions and melding themes of the music. It changed the vocabulary, the syntax, the grammar, the narrative, the structure, even the goal of the music I conceived of as “jazz”. It seemed to extend everything that I already knew into everything I didn’t know. It not only changed “jazz”, it changed music. And it sure changed me. Teo Macero “produced” those two Miles Davis recordings, presumably in a somewhat unusual collaborative effort. (We’ll have to go into the nature and varieties of music production at some other time.)

Years later I got to meet and hang out with Teo. Our paths would cross in the NY studios and we shared many friends and acquaintances in the music producer/music business world: John Hammond, George Avakian, Bob Thiel, Creed Taylor et al.

Teo was master of the tall tale. He was a dramatist in his own movie. He worked with so many of the giants of the music that I think he came to see himself as one of them. And in a way, he was, but it was his own sweet way. Teo would tell tales of fighting in Europe in the Second World War, but he served in the Pacific theatre of that war. He would tell stories about record dates that he may not have attended. But as it was once pointed out to me, what difference does it make if it’s true if it’s a good story?

I guess we seek clarity and truth when it comes to history but I think we know better than to believe that there is always a connection between truth and history. They aren’t even of the same species. Some things are clearer than others, and some things are documented. Teo Macero’s contributions to 20th century music by way of his own passion for composition and performance, for production and innovation, are well documented. It almost doesn’t matter what he thought of his accomplishments or how he may have embellished them. They still exist and the world would be a different place without them.

When we consider the musical spawn of Bitches Brew, we have to be amazed. Miles Davis was the young lion of bebop and was loved by and loved Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and maybe even Max Roach from time to time. He became the carrier of the flame and a generation later that flame exploded into Bitches Brew, and its antecedent, In A Silent Way. And from these recordings and this music came the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, Keith Jarrett’s Quartet (Ornette had a little something to do with that as well), Weather Report, Herbie Hancock’s groups, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Airto, etc. (These exotic flora were already about to bloom.)

Bitches Brew blew life into these baby innovators and they came to define and embody the future. These were young men in the 1960’s and now they are old men and they have created and are still creating their own resonance and influence. They are now the legendary figures of the music. And thus the traditions of improvised, rhythm based, harmonically innovative, individual music are maintained and advanced, and are hurled into the future.

Teo Macero was a facilitator of this evolution, of this evolutionary leap. In this way, the fingerprints of Teo Macero will be found on the future of American music, and now World music, forever.

I was fortunate to interview Teo on several occasions a few years ago for the Artists House website. There is a sweetness to his lack of humility and to his flights of imagination. He was all bark and no bite. But most of all, he cared. He cared about others, although he could be downright paranoid about their motives and affection, and he cared about music and musicians, even though he could be doubtful of their appreciation for his efforts. He was an artist and as such held himself to the highest standards, so it is understandable that he perceived himself as an equal among giants. He like them, was his own invention.

Decide for yourself. Listen to the music that he produced for others as well as for himself and watch the videos. Then give thanks for the amazing life of the amazing, if not magnificent, Teo Macero. And in this way we celebrate a life well lived.

John Snyder

February 29, 2008

It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday

tessa — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:05:50 -0800

Article:

I got an email yesterday announcing that one of my favorite magazines is ceasing their publication. I’ve been a fan of No Depression, an amazing pub mostly covering the alt-country world (the magazine was named after the debut record from Uncle Tupelo, the band Jeff Tweedy was in prior to forming Wilco) since 1998 when I started advertising there for Rykodisc. The editorial was great, and the folks running it were absolute pleasures to deal with.

We all know the Internet has changed the music and publishing industries forever, and No Depression really was caught in the perfect storm between the two. The editors wrote a goodbye letter of sorts, which laid out their dilemma:

“…advertising revenue in this issue is 64% of what it was for our March- April issue just two years ago. We expect that number to continue to decline. The longer answer involves not simply the well-documented and industry wide reduction in print advertising, but the precipitous fall of the music industry. As a niche publication, ND is well insulated from reductions in, say, GM's print advertising budget; our size meant they weren't going to buy space in our pages, regardless. On the other hand, because we're a niche title we are dependent upon advertisers who have a specific reason to reach our audience. That is: record labels. We, like many of our friends and competitors, are dependent upon advertising from the community we serve. That community is, as they say, in transition. In this evolving downloadable world, what a record label is and does is all up to question. What is irrefutable is that their advertising budgets are drastically reduced, for reasons we well understand. It seems clear at this point that whatever businesses evolve to replace (or transform) record labels will have much less need to advertise in print. The decline of brick and mortar music retail means we have fewer newsstands on which to sell our magazine, and small labels have fewer venues that might embrace and hand-sell their music. Ditto for independent bookstores. Paper manufacturers have consolidated and begun closing mills to cut production; we've been told to expect three price increases in 2008. Last year there was a shift in postal regulations, written by and for big publishers, which shifted costs down to smaller publishers whose economies of scale are unable to take advantage of advanced sorting techniques.”

I get a lot of my music news updates from RSS feeds from maybe a dozen or so outlets, but I love kicking back with Paste, Magnet, Harp and No Depression as well. As Barack Obama says, change is what’s happening, but in the case of No Depression, it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.

Yet another "reason"

tessa — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:03:11 -0800

Yet another "reason"

Article:

A new Harris Interactive executive omnibus poll of senior business leaders shows a positive association between music education with career advancement. Overall, nearly three-quarters of executives (73 percent) were involved in some type of music program while in school.

The October 2007 Harris Poll that I referenced in my previous post showed music education at an early age greatly increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to seek higher education and ultimately earn a higher salary. This new poll, looking specifically at executives in top companies across the nation, confirms the October poll findings demonstrating music education provides skills and attributes that can lead to success in careers later in life.

Seventy-two percent of executives with music education feel music education equips people to be better team players in their careers and 71 percent feel music education provides you with a disciplined approach to problem solving.

Dr. Elliot W. Eisner of Stanford University reports the arts have cognitive effects, aiding in the preparation for entry into the workforce of the 21st century. Specifically, he cites the following key competencies as being developed through arts education: perception of relationships, skills in finding multiple solutions to problems; attention to nuance; adaptability; decision making skills; and visualization of goals and outcomes.

As stated in my "Do We Really Need a Reason" post, I celebrate music making for very different reasons than the information stated in these Harris Polls. However, in this era of arts program budget cuts, it's good to have more advocacy tools, such these studies, to fight for what we know is important to educating the whole child.... arts education. If we need it, thanks to this most recent study, we have "yet another reason."

For a wealth of additional advocacy resources on ArtistsHouseMusic, click here

Attachment	Size
violin.jpg	2.11 KB

February 13, 2008

tessa — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:47:18 -0800

Article:

Hello!

We’ve added some new content and features that I’d like to tell you about.

First, we have added a discussion area to the site for our community to interact with one another, promote themselves, and direct questions to our editorial staff. Check out the discussion zone here.

There are several new articles for those of you interested in opportunities within the music business. George Howard has started in on his Music Business 101 series with two pieces: An Introduction to the Music Business, and Music Business 101 Essentials. George does a great job at breaking down the complicated business, and frames the process using real-world examples (Nirvana being a very interesting subject).

We encourage members of our community to contribute content to us. Jeanine Guidry from the band Offering, has created two social networking pieces that detail the phenomenon of social networking, and the sites that an independent musician should be aware of. Mike Scott has outlined some amazing concert experiences (including Cream, Tom Waits, and Rickie Lee Jones) here in our discussion forum.

Debbie Cavalier, our resident education expert and children’s musician, has written a wonderful piece on performing music for children: knowing your audience, business considerations, selling your CDs, and building your mailing list. Check it out here.

I’ve written a few pieces related to music industry sales and distribution. The first piece differentiates UPC Codes from ISRC codes, what they do, and how you apply for them. I’ve also outlined how an independent musician can go about getting their music up on the digital retail sites like iTunes by using the online distributors CD Baby and TuneCore. Lastly, I’ve outlined the process that independent musicians must use to report their venue sales to SoundScan. It’s not an easy process, but possible!

We’ve also added a number of video interviews with education experts from UCLA and USC’s Thornton School of Music, as well as interviews with Jay Cooper, Chair of the Los Angeles Entertainment Practice of Greenberg Traurig, former president of NARAS, and a noted author in the fields of intellectual property and contract negotiation.

Artists House is also in the early stages of a partnership with NARAS (The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences). Click here to watch the Indie Impact! series of workshops and discussions by NARAS on how to survive and build a career in the music industry.

Finally, producer, engineer & songwriter Aaron Sternke demonstrates many of the advanced features of Pro Tools, from fundamental to advanced, in this Pro Tools Tutorial.

How to get your music on iTunes

tessa — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:45:50 -0800

How to get your music on iTunes

Article:

With everything that is happening right now with the Copyright Registration Board and the new mechanical royalty rate discussions (which will be the first time ever that rates are set for digital products such as digital downloads, subscription services and ringtones), I thought it might make sense to talk about how you, as an independent musician, can get into the digital music retail game. I did a quick interview for CNN/Fortune last week on the topic of digital distribution, which is a fair enough primer on the basics. Text is below, and shortened interview can be found here.

===

The good news is that a lot of what independent labels did for artist in the past can now be accomplished by the artists themselves. Distribution is key among the tasks that in the past were monopolized by labels and are now open to almost anyone through forward-thinking online distributors. Two companies in particular have empowered artists to get their music on iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, and the other online retailers: CD Baby and TuneCore. Essentially these online distributors do exactly the same thing – they have direct relationships with the digital retailers and provide a bridge to get your music into the stores. However, they operate slightly differently. CD Baby charges a small fee (currently 9%) for every sale that generates online. Tunecore charges no fee on sales, but instead charges a one-time fee, per store, per album for delivering the music, and one-time charge per song you upload (both charges are currently $.99), plus a $20 annual fee. You’ll need to run the numbers to see which one works best for your particular situation. There are other online distributors popping up all the time, but these two are the most established and have a proven track record of success.

One important factor to note: distribution follows marketing. One does not market their music by getting on iTunes. The key is to generate interest outside of these retailers and to drive folks to the outlet so they will buy your music. This is best done though a fully integrated marketing campaign that focuses on effective traditional outlets, and also takes advantage of the marketing outlets and technologies that are now available to the independent musician (Internet marketing is a big part of this, of course). Quick advice: be sure to have your own Web page to start (do not make the mistake of only having a MySpace page), and tour, tour, tour.

Attachment	Size
itunes.jpg	1.91 KB

Guitar Hero Saves the Music Business

Ben — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:15:49 -0800

Article:

I love the Guitar Hero franchise. Even the 80's version that was only for the ps2 and only had 35 songs but still cost 50 bucks. If you're keeping score, that makes 4 titles for the franchise, to this point. The titles span all major consoles and according to the publisher Activision in the past 26 months the franchise has generated over 1 billion dollars in sales.

Let me put 1 billion dollars in perspective. It's a big enough number so that even millionaires say "damn, that's a lot of money!" but small enough so that no one in at the International Association of Jazz Educators conference in Toronto that I met last week (including the heads of prestigious music schools) had heard of the franchise.

I was manning a booth in the exhibition hall for artistshousemusic.org and on Saturday, the last day of the event a lady came up to me and she wanted to know what she could do to foster a love of music in her 7 year old daughter. My answer: on the way home, go to Best Buy and find the demo versions of Guitar Hero III or Rock Band on the floor and try them. That's your answer.

And how. On top of the $1 billion dollar announcement by Activision, CNN is profiling the rise of Guitar Hero nights in restaurants, clubs, and bars. MSNBC reports that since October 27, 2007 more than 5 million songs have been purchased for Guitar Hero III at $0.99 to $1.99 a piece. Guitar Hero III has sold more than 5 million units since its release at $90 each. For Rock Band, out since late November, it has sold in excess of 2.5 million songs. This in addition to total unit sales in excess of 1 million for Rock Band through the end of 2007 at $170 each.

Let me back up for the totally uninitiated. When you buy a game in the Guitar Hero franchise, it typically comes with a small plastic guitar controller. It has five fret buttons, a strum bar, and a whammy bar. The game allows the player to simulate playing guitar to all of the songs in the game. It's a simple concept but one that has a powerful draw. It can give you a musician's high. Like a real musical instrument, the game also requires actual skill. Activision has been able to extend the value of the game by making more songs available online for purchase.

These purchases are one of the only bright spots in the music business at the moment. Each song costs between $0.99 and $1.99 unless they're bundled in a pack of 3 songs which costs $5.50. Since these songs are available only on the Xbox Live Marketplace or the Sony network, there is no piracy. People are paying for the experience, but there's also no alternative.

Now that the floodgates are open, look for future publishers (EA, I'm looking at you) to investigate opportunities to sell music to gamers in a range of titles, from racing games to puzzle games.

These games are good for music and good for the music business. If you listen closely you’ll hear a small cacophony of music teachers telling you what Guitar Hero won’t teach you. No one is confusing one guitar with the other. This game gets kids and adults both excited in participating in music. After years of reading about how the live music scene is dying, one can cry that its rebirth is in the living rooms of America but think about a generation from now when we get great music by a kid first stimulated to play by a video game. The beauty of these games is the ability for the musically untrained to participate in the experience of performing music. The secret isn’t the technology, it’s the experience.

If you're a soloist, check out Guitar Hero III, and if you're into the group thing, go for Rock Band. You'll find that once you start, you can't stop. You’ll be surprised how good it feels to "play" music.

- ArtistshouseMusic -

Amazon makes good use of Facebook

Article:

Related Links

Herb Alpert Foundation Awards $1.2 Million for Scholarships for Young Artists

Article:

Related Links

The Tangled Web of Terrestrial Radio Artist Performance Royalties

Article:

Related Links

Ooh Lala! (dot com)

Article:

Related Links

Solving the Problem with Digital Music: Slimbox Duet

Article:

Related Links

Make Our Video

Article:

Related Links

I Take Back All That Bad Stuff I Said About SoundExchange (And So Should You)

Article:

Related Links

Starbucks Pulling Out of Day-to-Day Management of Hear Music

Article:

Related Links

Keepin It Real

Article:

Related Links

Apple wins!

Article:

Related Links

¾ Of Major Labels Ink A 360 Deal With MySpace

Article:

Related Links

Alan McGee on 360 Deals

Article:

Related Links

SXSW

Article:

Related Links

Not on the Test!

Article:

Related Links

Ghosts in the Machine

Article:

Related Links

Why I love Tunecore

Article:

Related Links

Teo Macero

Article:

Related Links

It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Article:

Related Links

Yet another "reason"

Article:

Related Links

February 13, 2008

Article:

Related Links

How to get your music on iTunes

Article:

Related Links

Guitar Hero Saves the Music Business

Article:

Related Links